With an intro email that included tacos, pizza, and the words “crazy stupid decision to get married in Ireland”, Jordann and Nick spoke all the right magic words to get our attention. More than that, we liked them enough to fly 9 hours around the world to Ireland and roam through forests, across mountain tops, and all over Dublin in a country where everyone drives on the wrong side of the road.
As you can see from the short film above this wedding was completely worth the jetlag, and you can expect a longer film, as well as a (gasp) behind the scenes video in the future.
There’s this one wedding from a few years back in the Texas Hill Country that to this day Rachel and I still look back on. Kelsey and Jacob’s wedding had perfect weather, gorgeous ceremony, incredible band, plus this was the only wedding we’ve ever filmed that had a petting zoo!
Over the years since that wedding we’ve talked semi-regularly about how much fun it had been and how we wish we could visit that ranch and family again. Imagine our surprise and joy when Kelsey’s sister Kendall asked us to film her wedding to her fiance Stephen!
We returned to the Texas Hill Country, where Kendall and Stephen said their vows under the bluest skies. As the sunset stretched across the valley below, a half indoor-outdoor reception with band and DJ topped off the night.
We now have two weddings to look back on about this place, and that makes us so happy.
Rachel says I’ve become much more emotional since the birth of our daughter Leah. When I traveled to Nashville to film the first wedding since Leah was born, I can confirm that I’m much more likely to cry at a wedding now that I have a daughter that will grow up one day and most likely get married.
Seeing not only the love of Allyson and Mark, but the way that they were loved by their friends and family moved me to tears at multiple times throughout their wedding weekend. This trailer shows some of those moments, and many more happy times as well. I may have been crying, but I fit right in on the wedding day.
I met Lacy years ago when she was photographing the same wedding I was filming. I was relatively new and was experiencing shooting video with a fancy full frame camera for the first time, whereas she was the expert with a plethora of lenses that she was willing to let me borrow.
This was the first hint I saw of Lacy’s generosity. We would only see each other every year or two when working weddings together, but she was always a text or Facebook message away when I needed business advice or recommendations. She was an open book and held no secrets about the wedding industry, and to this day I’m convinced that my business would not be as successful as it is now without her encouragement.
I should also mention her photography talents here, because that plays into her wedding story as well. Lacy has the rare ability to make any bride look and feel like a princess in her photos. And to be clear, I don’t mean cheesy, super airbrushed “princess”, I’m talking “you are going to look your best you ever have, your photos will look like a fairytale, and it’s all due to Lacy’s photography skills.”
One blisteringly hot day in Sugarland, Lacy and I filmed a wedding together and I met her new second shooter and boyfriend, Scott. There’s guys that I’ve met that exude cool, and he fit the description fully. The list of guys with a resume that includes military, police, and photography experience isn’t very long, but he’s on it. More so than his list of skills that rival Liam Neeson, was the way he looked at and talked about Lacy. There was a tenderness there under the surface that was impossible to miss. A wedding for these two was inevitable.
Throughout her career Lacy had documented thousands of weddings for thousands of couples, but you could tell that her wedding was something completely new. She had spent her life creating images of brides that look like princesses, and now it was finally time for her to live that fairytale. It brought me so much joy to be able to capture that moment for them in this film.
This film took a bit longer than usual to edit. No, not because of stress caused by the impending birth of our first child (okay, maybe that is in the back our minds), but because it can be a challenge to fit so many good moments into one film.
If you’ve watched Kaley and Doug’s wedding trailer, you’ll now that I’ve been Facebook friends with Kaley for many years, but Rachel and I didn’t sit down to really get to know her and Doug until several months before their wedding. What we found was a couple that was perfectly comfortable with who they were, able to sit at home watching The Office and eating Whataburger, or the spend a week halfway around the world in Paris.
Their wedding was as eclectic as they are, with the big barn elements of the Texas countryside fused with a Jewish ceremony, tearful and comedic vows, heartfelt letters, faces scrunched up with laughter, a horah dance that bordered on chaotic, and a smattering of electronic music (Kaley’s favorite) booming in the background.
We hope Kaley and Doug were taken on as much of a ride when watching their film as we were filming and editing it.
Getting married? No matter how crazy, we would love to film it! Please get in touch. 🙂
